Are you “Made in Canada”? Perhaps you were “Made in Mexico”, “Made in USA” or “Made in China”. Han and I joke around about this all the time. When we compare our cell phone bills for example, she’ll joke and tell me that mine is more expensive than hers because I’m “Made in Canada”, so I cost more.

Behind these innocent jokes are a harsher reality for many people. For humans, being “Made in Canada” is pure luck; if you happen to be born here, you have the freedom to make many choices in your life. You can choose what you want to do for a living, whether to get an education or not, and you can live your life however you want without much trouble (assuming you obey the law).

You’re not going to find a list of requirements that you need to meet in order to be accepted to live here. You just live here. And like many other people, I took this for granted for most of my life.

But someone who was not “Made in Canada”, but wants to become Canadian doesn’t have a choice. They need to be highly educated and highly skilled. Or they need to have close family here, or find someone to sponsor them or perhaps pay tens of thousands of dollars for a phony marriage.

The 3 basic requirements for immigrating to Canada are as follows:

You need to have a job offer, or you have been working in Canada for at least 1 year, or you have at least 1 year of experience in this list of occupations.

You need to have at least 1 year of experience in a managerial occupation, professional occupation or technical occupations and skilled trades.

If you meet the above 2 requirements, you gain points for the following six factors:

Your education

Your English/French language abilities

Your work experience

Your age

Whether you have arranged employment in Canada

Your adaptability

It’s amazing to me how hard people work to get here, yet some people here treat immigrants as though they are inferior. Canada is such a special country because it’s so tolerant of so many different cultures and religions. But what gives me the right to judge another human based solely on the fact that they are born in a different country than me?

There’s an organization dedicated to reducing immigration in Canada called “Immigration Watch Canada”, and the United States has several of these types of groups. They describe the current policies of immigration as an “uncontrolled, irrational flood”.

I understand that a country can’t just let everybody in, but to be so selfish in thinking that Canada should reduce or eliminate immigration because jobs are being taken away from Canadians is just wishful thinking.

Immigration helps to fill positions where there are worker shortages such as Doctors, Nurses, and University Professors. Immigration brings new cultures, diversity and exposure to other parts of the world that you may have never thought about. Some immigrants are happy to fill positions that we may not want to do ourselves. The list of benefits for everyone are endless.

I had an ex-roomate who used to think that Canada was over populated because of immigrants and the country would become unsustainable. He was a sensible guy, a good friend… yet he thought immigrants are causing problems in his country (i.e. Canada).

From first hand experience (my dad); I think you’ve heard this story… he was the IT manager in a 100 person non-IT company in Malta..came here and worked as a security guard for 2 years on the night shift at parking lots. He had no “Canadian experience”.

Boyan, I find people always try to blame other people for their own problems; it’s always easier to blame someone else. It really is a shame that your Dad wasn’t given credit for his past experience. Hopefully the successes of his son made it worthwhile for him to come to this country.

Cranky, I agree that it is rewarding for people to work hard to start a new life here. I guess my rant is about seeing people who were born here (and haven’t had to work hard for anything in their lives) criticize immigrants.